Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Vital signs

I keep telling people, that's exciting, they say, wow good for you, they beam, I'm jealous, they confess. There seems to be a pattern forming. I carry it on and continue with my own chain, it's scary, I say, hopefully good for me, I confess, yeah, I agree with whatever personal statement they've shared. I pull a who-knows face and shrug my shoulders towards the unknown, dragging down some force I'm trusting in, a weak, shaky trust. Though I've now started to cut short my doubting replies and dive to the end point - everyone is saying the same things, but what they really mean is that's crazy, why would anyone quit their job without another and move to a country where you speak no language and don't yet have a bed. I shrug and I'm free. It seems like a kind of virtue.

I moaned a few months ago how I'd like to become more wild. Not that I am any shade of wild at present. So I'd like to become wild. I'm quite interested in cliches at the moment, and 'throw caution to the wind' 'comes to mind'. Any slice of wariness is thrown into air, given over to natural forces, nurture gives up, lays back, waits. I keep having this image of throwing balls up into the air like those John Baldessari prints, I'm not looking for a line but waiting to see what else forms, I'm able to zoom round the balls in CGI style to watch from all sides, I'm intrigued, but I have no fucking clue what's gonna happen when these balls land.

About five years ago I had a vision. It was a small, darkened notion of low hues and warm tint, a peek no bigger than a postage stamp, actually more like the size of a hole punch. A flicker in what was such a terrible terrible darkness, to think now how I kept such a light makes me feel strong. Anyway, this vision was like the 'little lift' she mentioned, which I may or may not have spoken about before. It glimmered in my heart whenever I was turned to it, like a penny fresh out of a glass of Coke, yes it was definitely fizzy and astronomically exciting and potential-filled-to-the-brim. It was a glimpse into how things could be so much more alive.

To list these things will be like explaining a dream, it just dies as soon as you turn it into language, but suffice to say I was single and free and I lived in London and I had friends and went dancing and lost my cynicism and wore dresses and lipstick without occasion. There was a lot more to it than that, because that sounds like a pretty shit dream. And it came true. My inkling was right, and wow am I glad I went with it. And now I have a new one. The difference between here and there is like the life of another character out of a completely different book, a huge absurdity gap, twisted and flipped and re-imagined in a utterly different materials. It's exotic and a bit wild, and it might be me.